Bill Lawrence BL-1 R65G (Gold Hardware, c. 1989)

This BL-1 features gold hardware, which pairs beautifully with its black body and maple fingerboard—a striking and elegant combination.

According to the now-closed website The Study of Bill Lawrence Guitars, around 1987, the model designation system changed so that the letter indicating the fingerboard type—R for rosewood or M for maple—was placed immediately after “BL1.” In earlier models, this same letter appeared just before the final color code at the end of the model name.

Following that logic, this guitar would be classified as a rosewood fingerboard BL-1 made after 1987. However, as you can clearly see, it features a beautiful maple fingerboard, and there are no signs that the neck was ever replaced.

Initially, I assumed this was a rare exception—but later, when disassembling a BL-2, I found the same kind of inconsistency. It seems best, therefore, to treat neck pocket markings as rough references rather than absolute indicators.

The gold-hardware version appeared in the 1989 catalog under the model name BL-1 R65G, and it’s quite possible that this guitar was sold under that designation. The BL series itself disappeared from catalogs after 1990.

Body: Alder
Weight: 3.42 kg (including strings)
(Updated August 18, 2016)